For me, Israel played no important role. And like I say, I mean, I longed for Poland, not for Jerusalem. - Irena Klepfisz

You’re sort of one person at one moment and another person at another moment. I suppose the only time that you’re ever really complete is when you’re by yourself or in an environment in which you’re not hiding. In the gay community, I was not hiding my Jewishness. Not everybody was interested in my Yiddish work, but nobody was hostile to it. But in the Jewish world, I had to be shut down in certain ways.

Just as we must not allow our strong commitment to developing Jewish secularism to detract from the struggle in the Middle East, that conflict cannot be used to allow assimilation to take over our lives.

As I grew older, I learned the full breadth of Yiddish literature; but this early introduction with its inherent political vision became as powerful an influence in my life as did the war.